Declaration – Alyssa Healy | Grandstand | Sport | ABC Australia

In this episode of Declaration a video series produced by ABC Grandstand, Alyssa Healy talks about the challenges of starting a family as a female athlete.

The cricketer explains how she and partner Mitchell Starc are planning for the future.

Produced by ABC Grandstand.

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Transcript:

Looking ahead to the future is something that we do quite regularly.

I like to think that I live in the moment and don't stress too much about what's going to happen.

But looking down the track, we'd obviously love to have kids and to be able to set ourselves up now, so that once we do decide to retire we can provide a really good life for those around us, whether that be kids or family.

Times have changed. I remember touring back in the UK, it was my first trip overseas and Sarah Elliot at the time was breastfeeding in the change room at the lunch breaks of a test match.

She'd just had a baby and fortunately, her husband could tour with her at the time.

It was accessible to them and they could do that.

But, you know, here I was a really young, naive cricketer sitting in the change room next to someone who's breastfeeding and caring for a child while she was making 100 in a test match.

That was something that blew my mind.

And the way that cricket and women's sport is has changed so much in this country over the last few years.

There are more and more policies that are coming in to allow women in their fields to come back in and be a part of this sport after having a child.

I know that Cricket Australia are working at the moment on a really strong pregnancy policy for us.

And that will enable girls to potentially take time off and have a child and come back and get support when they come back.

You know, if a family member needs to tour with them on tour, or a babysitter or a nanny needs to come and help out.

I've often thought about walking away from the game you know, at various points throughout my career especially when it was not fully professional.

There were times that I it was getting really difficult and thought about maybe something else I could do is my career and a lot of my friends from school are all having babies or got young kids at the moment.

The way that the women's game is right now, being fully professional and we really, as a playing group feel like we're really making an impact in so some young people's lives.

And I can say that there's a pathway for themselves both male and female into the game of cricket and they can see themselves playing for Australia and you know, making a living playing cricket.

So for me personally, it's motivating me to potentially play a little bit longer than what I always dreamed of.

I feel really fortunate that I've got a lot of family and obviously my husband around me that have done or doing what I'm currently doing and I can sort of rely on them for some advice or even just you know, a bit of a cuddle after a hard day.

I think that's a really unique situation to be in but at the same time, it's a really good one.

So, I guess walking in the door after a day, you know, for Mitch to know exactly how my day went

now he's probably been through a lot similar to me, both highs and lows and for us

to just park that aside and go and do something else and get my mind away from cricket is really good.

And it's like I said a unique situation, but one that works really well.

We've still got a lot of cricket left in us but at the end of the day if we have a few little Starcs running around.

Hopefully, they don't play cricket. I'm not sure what we want them to do yet, maybe golf.

We'd love to go on a golf tour.

So, you know, if that happens, then that'd be great.